


kingdom of salt and bone

by friedgalaxies



Category: Naruto
Genre: Chronic Illness, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25813828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friedgalaxies/pseuds/friedgalaxies
Summary: itachi is dying. this is inevitable.
Kudos: 20





	kingdom of salt and bone

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for graphic depictions of chronic illness and familial death

Itachi Uchiha has a timer on his forehead. 

It’s not a physical timer, but everyone can see it. They just have to take a look into the deep bags beneath his bloodshot eyes, the blood crusted in the corner of his mouth and the shaking heave of his chest as he draws each breath; and then the timer on his forehead becomes visible, even through his forehead protector. The numbers are blurry, to anyone looking at him, at the red glow peeking through the slash in his forehead protector, red creeping into the deconstructed spirals of the Konoha symbol, all that ties him back to the village that was once his home. 

The numbers are blurry but if you spend enough time staring into the ghostly pallor of his face, they’re easily readable. He should know, he sees them every time he looks in the mirror, but even that isn’t a necessity when he wants to know the time slowly ticking down on his forehead. The numbers are etched into the very marrow of his bones, all the way down to the carbon molecules that make them up. Tally marks gouged into the calcium that holds him up, each strike another ticking second that he doesn’t have left. Soon, the entirety of his skeleton will be covered in these marks, and he’ll be too brittle to stand. He’ll blow away like so much ash and carbon on the wind, and no one will be there to remember him as anything but a murderer, the lynchpin of a slaughter, the conductor behind a massacre. 

Sasuke has already forgotten him as the older brother he once knew, if he could even see Itachi’s drawn, gaunt face through the haze of bloodlust in his young eyes. 

Sasuke has a timer on his forehead, as every Uchiha that achieves a sharingan does, and with every use of their bloodline it ticks further forward, staggering to a jolting stop whenever the sharingan deactivates. 

Sasuke has so much time left, but he’s running himself into the ground like he’s already a dead man. 

The rest of the Akatsuki do not possess timers like Itachi does, at least nowhere visible. Itachi thinks that there is an inevitable amount of time till Deidara blows himself up in some kind of demented love letter to the art medium he so values, but aside from his explosive bloodline, there is nothing curdling Deidara’s blood into a standstill. Sasori, his partner, gave up any hopes at a human death a long time ago, forcing himself into an immortal puppet body that will outlast all of them, even Hidan’s supposed immortality. 

Immortality is such a funny concept to Itachi, because he could never imagine having that much time ahead of himself. He could hardly imagine having an entire lifetime, living a full life and passing away in his sleep at a decrepit one-hundred-years, even. But perhaps it is something to be thankful for, that he will never watch his body waste away with age, becoming old and senile and a burden to everyone around him. At least this way, Itachi is an active participant in his own slow, slow death. 

There is a timer on Itachi’s forehead, and it is ticking down to zero. 

His partner, Kisame, gods bless his soul, he knows it. He accommodates it, even. For a mass murderer who delights in the taste of blood between his teeth, who drinks the smell of it into his nostrils like a heady draught, like an aphrodisiac, he is surprisingly polite. 

He waits, while Itachi coughs and splutters and heaves blood onto the side of the road, politely looks away as he dabs it from the side of his mouth, even offers him a kerchief stolen from the corpse of a nobleman. He offers to carry Itachi, at times, though he knows Itachi would rather move under his own power till he’s walking on bone than accept help from one of his teammates, so they brush it off like it’s a joke when he inevitably refuses. 

Kisame watches, as Itachi bobs the tea bag in his morning tisane, staring out the foggy window into the dreary, constant onslaught of grey water that is Rain Country. 

“You’re running out of time, you know.” Kisame says, like it’s conversational, like they’re merely discussing the unchanging weather. 

“I know.” Itachi says. By the gods, does he know. 

He knows it in the strain of skin against his ribs, as they lurch and press against his abdomen, like a creature trapped inside his ribcage is attempting to claw its way out. He knows it in the way every breath is laboured, in the way even the coolest, smoothest of air drags against the back of his throat like a burn. He knows it in the fatigue that is etched into his bones like the hundreds of tally marks counting him down to zero, the way even an entire day of sleep could leave him waking bone-weary and exhausted. He knows it the way he knows the sky is blue, and that Sasuke is going to be instrumental in his death. He knows he is dying, but Kisame tells him anyway, as if there’s any way he could be unaware of it. 

He knows it in the way Sasori is the first of them to die, because if Sasori and all his cleverness and his guile and his undying puppet body can die, then it is simply inevitable that Itachi will eventually follow. 

Apparently, Sasori let himself die, let himself be killed by the flesh-leather and wooden bone bodies of his Mother and Father puppets. There’s almost something poetic in it, in the fact that Sasori was instrumental in his own death, though it is a great loss to see such genius die. The end was inevitable, even for him, which means there is no use attempting to escape for Itachi. 

He uses his sharingan more, till blood threatens to leak from his eyes the way it leaks from the lining of his lungs, and he feels the timer tick down faster. 

He knows it in the way Hidan, foolish bravado and idiotic bluster, gets himself lured into the closest thing to a death possible for his immortality. Hidan’s immortality seems a real thing, unlike the artificial undying Kakuzu has created for himself, with his ever-replacing hearts, but his idiocy outweighs it. Or perhaps his brother’s peers are much smarter than Itachi previously thought, considering it was one of their own-- one of what used to be Itachi’s own, one of the boys he watched run and play with Sasuke and their agemates, one of the boys he attended the academy with-- that buries Hidan in a trap of his own making. 

Kakuzu dies at nearly the same, his artificial hearts shattered into so much blood and flesh, great strings of black fibers spread out around him like the wings of a fallen angel. Perhaps that was what Kakuzu was attempting to achieve; something holy, something next to divine. Is that not what all immortals are attempting to achieve, to create themselves in the image of god in their undeath? It’s not for Itachi’s mind, he doesn’t think. He will never know the achievement of a full life, so it’s useless to wonder what he would do with an impossibility in death. 

“It’s almost sad.” Kisame says, as they depart from the debriefing where they learn of Hidan’s sort-of death and Kakuzu’s disposal. “They were good agents.” 

Itachi simply hums, because he has nothing to say to that. He doesn’t feel as though he has any say in what makes a good person anymore, considering the monster he has become. 

Their numbers are dwindling, but Itachi simply can’t find it in himself to care. His thoughts pertain only to his little brother, these days, as Sasuke grows stronger and continues to attempt to kill him. 

There’s a certain level of planning that he needs, now, to run his timer out till it kills him before Sasuke does. He can’t let his little brother have his blood staining his hands, even as violent as Sasuke has become. Itachi supposes there is still some part of him that fashions himself the protective older brother, who will always swoop in at the last minute and save Sasuke from danger, even if that danger includes himself. 

But Sasuke does not view him as anything but the man behind a massacre, now. The man who killed his parents. 

Their parents. 

The man who slaughtered their entire village in a single night. 

Their village. 

The man who, though barely a few years older than himself, will always just be out of his reach. The man who he is constantly attempting to make himself stronger than. The man who he will kill, like it will somehow absolve all the hurt in Sasuke’s soul, the damage to his heart. Like it will be a sufficient reason for all of his own crimes, his own cruelties. 

Partnering with Orochimaru…. The very thought makes Itachi shiver, to know such a man was anywhere close to his little brother, much less putting hands on him. Teaching him. Training him. Guiding him. Housing him. 

It makes bile of a different kind scald the back of Itachi’s throat. 

But it is inevitable, like all things, that Deidara eventually blows himself up. Itachi thinks they should’ve put bets on it, when it would happen, how it would happen. 

There isn’t even enough of Deidara’s body left for the scavengers to peck at, but he did take an entire chunk of forest with him, so Itachi supposes he has to commend the man for something. 

Man…. it’s almost ridiculous to call him that, considering Deidara was even younger than himself, just barely older than Sasuke. The recklessness between the two of them, the uncaring for their own death if it meant they would achieve their goals, was almost uncanny, so much so that sometimes watching Deidara was like a pale imitation of Sasuke, in his louder moments. Funny, how he always ends up with the same kind of people around him. 

Their numbers are dwindling, yet again, like the numbers emblazoned into Itachi’s forehead. 

And then, then, the moment comes, and Sasuke has come to kill him, and Itachi can feel himself dying. He has but hours, but Sasuke doesn’t know that. He can’t know that, to think that his horrific older brother would be at anything less than his full power, during their final standoff. 

Itachi is stalling, simply, waiting for the moment that his own body will kill him, that his cells will commit mass suicide and he will be a walking corpse. 

Sasuke is strong, so strong. Itachi is so proud of him. 

His timer is running out. 

The seconds tick down. 

Itachi is dying. He’s so close to death he can taste it. 

Sasuke is so strong. 

His little brother is so strong, it would bring a proud tear to his eye if they weren’t already leaking blood. 

Itachi is dying. 

He pokes his pointer and middle fingers into Sasuke’s forehead a final time. 

Draws a final, ragged breath. 

Itachi is dyi 

Dy 

D 

Dead. 

Itachi is dead. 

Itachi’s timer has run out, and he is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! this idea popped into my head and i couldn't leave it alone, haha. as always, comments, concrit, and questions are always appreciated! i hope you're all staying safe <3


End file.
